Help. Rooster attacking other rooster at 7 weeks.

[Perris]

As Mrs K says, your adult hens are the best trainers for your young roo(s), unless you also have the cockerels' dad/uncles, who will also teach them how to behave.

 

[FrostRanger]

If he's drawing blood, definitely separate him. I think some decisions will need to be made regarding them. You're probably going to need to rehome one of them or otherwise keep them in separate flocks as this will probably only get worse if he's starting up that early. Up to you which one you keep although I'd lean towards the less aggressive one depending on how he's with towards everyone else including humans. What breeds are they?

 

[Traffie Chickens]

This is where as AArt says - "where the romance of keeping chickens meets reality." Roosters are a crap shoot, some can live together, and some cannot.

I would not expect this to change. A couple pictures of your set up, and yard might help. What I suspect at this age, is that your birds are in too small of place for the number of birds, but I could be wrong. What seems like more than enough space when they are little, rapidly becomes not enough space as they grow.

Adding clutter can help, it gives hideouts to the less brave birds, lets everyone get along better. The thing is, this is a lot of tension for the flock, and it bothers the hens too, or any other birds even the ones not in the fight.

If this is your first flock, I would recommend removing both roosters. Get some experience with chickens. I definitely recommend removing one of the roosters right now. Any time you have multiple roosters, you need a way to separate them. A dog crate will work temporarily.

It really won't matter which bird you keep, things will be better in the flock for a while if you get rid of one of the roosters, until puberty. At about 4-6 months, cockerels can be a whole new problem. Especially ones that are only raised with flock mates. I think there is a tendency to get better roosters that grow up under older hens. They do some educating of those boys that people just cannot do.

Mrs K

ps - I see you do have older birds. That will help. Do add clutter and hideouts, and multiple feed bowls. Getting rid of one of the boys will settle things down. Then you hope you picked the right one and get a nice rooster.

yes thank you! We will be separating the two Roos. Here are some pics of our coop/ setup and yard. The older hens stay in the coop separated from the youngsters. But usually free range for a couple hours a day, while they are ranging, we let the chicks in the closed coop. But today we left one roo in to stop fighting. And these are our first roosters so no uncles or fathers.

This is where the chicks are separated from the older hens. And we kept the one roo in today, and let the others out.

This is the run. The stuff in the back is dried leaves.

And here is the full coop. Hope these help.

 

[Traffie Chickens]

If he's drawing blood, definitely separate him. I think some decisions will need to be made regarding them. You're probably going to need to rehome one of them or otherwise keep them in separate flocks as this will probably only get worse if he's starting up that early. Up to you which one you keep although I'd lean towards the less aggressive one depending on how he's with towards everyone else including humans. What breeds are they?

Ya we are getting rid of the mean one. The other one is the nicest rooster, whenever i walk into the run he runs over to me and wants me to pick him up.

This is the nice one. I think he’s half black jersey giant, half Easter egger.

And this is the mean one. You can see the blood on his beak. I couldn’t get a good pic because he was grabbing my skin and trying to rip at it. He is an EE.

 

[Mrs. K]

Looking at your set up, it would be best to keep only one, and understand the idea that that rooster might not work either.

But I think if you get rid of one, this might settle down well.

 

[Traffie Chickens]

not at this age. They are still growing and will not be sexually mature for a couple of months yet. Sex will enter their brain a bit later in development when they are twice the size they currently are. Look out for crowing as a sign they're getting there.

The nice one has been crowing since he was 4 weeks old. But I have never seen him ever even try to hurt anyone.

 

[Mrs. K]

I am not sure that the dark bird is a rooster? If so, a very late developing one. How old are they?

 

[Traffie Chickens]

Thank you for all of your help! We will be

I am not sure that the dark bird is a rooster? If so, a very late developing one. How old are they?

they are 7 weeks old. I thought that too. But he has been crowing for 3 weeks now.

 

[Traffie Chickens]

We are getting rid of the awful one and most very likely getting rid of the other one as well.

 

[Traffie Chickens]

Thank you for all of your help! We will be

they are 7 weeks old. I thought that too. But he has been crowing for 3 weeks now.

But I mean it could be a hen crowing, but very slim chance